Is your blog ready for an emergency? What would happen if your site got hacked or crashed, or worse yet your computer died?
What about if you had a health emergency and weren’t able to do your usual work for a while?
Recently I had a few different “emergencies” come up which caused me a bit of serious panic concerning my blog. I immediately began to wonder if I was prepared for the emergency, or if things were going to just fall apart.
I was stressed, to say the least!
These emergencies were in different forms. One of the times it was my site being hacked, and not long after it was “fixed” it was crashing and giving me continuous error messages, making it impossible for me to access my blog posts or anything on my site.
Another time I opened my laptop to begin working and was met with a black screen. Nothing but black and nothing would change that.
Then more recently it was a physical emergency for me which landed me in the ER for several hours, and then back in the ER again two days later where I was admitted for the night and the whole next day.
None of these emergencies came at a convenient time. All of them came during big sales that I was an affiliate for, as well as when I was in the middle of launching a 30-day email series. (Is there EVER a convenient time?!)
I realized with each of the different emergencies that it is vital to BE PREPARED! I was NOT prepared in some of these areas, which made things more stressful than they would have been if I had things in place.
Some things I suggest you do NOW to be prepared for the emergencies that may come:
1. Have contact information for your host in an easy to find spot, along with your login information, and pin for identification.
It took me awhile to find that information because I never needed it, and even then I had no idea what my pin was. This just made things take longer as they had to send me an email to confirm my identity, set up a new pin, etc.
2. Invest in site security. (before you need it!)
Because I was desperate to get my site back up, I ended up paying way too much for the site security which my host recommended. They would fix it within a few hours which I really needed to be done, so I signed up for it trying not to think about the cost, and thinking I had no other options.
They mentioned the savings by paying the annual fee rather than a monthly fee but failed to mention that there is no getting out of it then for the whole year.
Since then I have asked other bloggers and gotten suggestions on reputable security plans that aren’t near as expensive. I plan to switch to a reputable but less expensive one when my year is up with the current security program.
3. Have some kind of backup for your site and all of your files.
When I opened to a black screen I became very worried about the two new ebooks I had just written, that were in my document files. I was concerned about my Quicken records and whether they had been backed up. I wondered if I was going to lose my notes for all of my workshop talks.
Fortunately, I have a great tech guy who was able to back everything up before he began to work on my laptop. I also pay for Sky Vault which backs things up — but after this shake-up, I went in and made sure that I had it set up to backup all the important things, so nothing of value will be lost in the future if something happens.
Make sure you have some way of backing things up on your computer and do it regularly!
4. Stay ahead with scheduled posts and emails.
With the black screen, I had no laptop for almost 3 days, and was very glad that I had already scheduled my post for later that week, and written an email to go out.
5. Have a handy list of old posts to republish, as well as social media memes to share when you aren’t too functional.
With the ER visits and hospital stay, I was unable to do any online work. When I got home, I had access but not much energy or focus. I was able to look at my list of older posts, and just republish them as needed with very little thought or effort.
6. If possible, have an assistant who can help you in times of emergency or sickness.
My VA checked scheduled posts for me to make sure they were indeed scheduled and ready to go. She also took care of some giveaways that I had going at the time.
How prepared are you for any blog emergencies that may come along? I would encourage you to plan and schedule at least a month ahead of time, and be prepared at all times! Not only will it keep your blog running smoothly, but it will help to lessen your stress level!
